Psychology courses require 4 hours of experiment participation

As a requirement for course completion, students in many courses must participate in four hours of experimental research for each of the first two courses they take in the psychology department. Through their participation, undergraduates form the human subject pool for graduate students and faculty researchers. Undergraduate psychology majors are not allowed to use the subject pool for research because of size constraints.

“We can’t do our science without the subject pool,” said Shane Blackman GS, a first-year graduate student. “The questions that you can ask without human subjects are very limited.”

Psychology professor Kenneth Norman said that undergraduate participation not only allows graduate students to collect data, but offers undergraduates a firsthand look at how psychologists study emotions and behavior. “The point of participating in the experiment is to understand the question that the researcher is interested in,” Norman said. Following a debriefing given to subjects after the test, “you get some explanation as to why you did what you did,” he added.

But Christine Mak ’13, who is enrolled in two psychology courses this semester, questioned the benefits to undergraduates who participate in these experiments. “I think our participation in the studies is more for the graduate students, so that they can have a large subject pool to draw from, rather than for the undergraduate students who participate in them,” she said in an e-mail. “Most of the studies were mindless, some of them to the point of tedious.”

Studies last 30 minutes, one hour or two hours, and researchers debrief their undergraduate subjects following the experiment.

But, Mak noted, “Not all the people who ran the experiments bothered to explain the study to you personally. Most just handed you a piece of paper, which would go unread in most cases.”

Psychology concentrator Ana Sollitto ’11 said that familiarity with the system makes the requirement easier to fulfill. “You gauge which experiments would be surveys you take online, and which ones you have to go to Green Hall for,” she said. Once she figured this out, “It wasn’t that bad.”

Like Sollitto, Mak — who was required to complete eight credits — said the time commitment was not overly burdensome. “Even though I had twice as many credits to complete ... it didn’t take as long as I thought it would.” She added that she completed some of the requirement over spring break, “which probably helped.”

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Blackman noted that he has not encountered disinterested students while running his experiments. “They were very engaged and interested in what’s going on in my experiment,” he said.

He added that, in his experience, the level of engagement between paid participants and credit participants was “about the same.” At the University, paid subjects are compensated a maximum of $12 for hour-long studies and $8 for half-hour studies.

Blackman said that trust between the researcher and subject is necessary for successful experiments. “It’s very easy for someone in a subtle way to ruin someone’s research,” he said, adding, “There’s a huge element of trust.”

Though the vast majority of students enrolled in psychology courses participate in studies, they can also choose to complete writing assignments instead.

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“It would be unethical of us to compel people to participate in experiments,” Norman explained. Each writing assignment is worth 30 minutes of credit, such that students must complete eight writing assignments to forgo all research participation.

Rosemarie Stevenson, the department’s human subjects administrator, said in an e-mail that only about five students per semester select this option.

Writing assignments require students to examine psychology papers and “extract the core meaning of the experiment,” Norman said. Though writing assignments do not offer students the same experience as participating in studies, they are “the next best thing,” he explained.

Writing assignments may also be assigned if students fail to reschedule a missed appointment. Students are assigned one paper for every half hour they miss.

Stevenson said that failing to fulfill the research requirement is not a common occurrence.

“Over the years, I have only encountered a handful of students who did not complete this requirement,” she said, adding that in those cases, “there were other course issues involved.”

Norman said that regardless of how students choose to complete it, the participation requirement is central to the department’s efforts to educate students. “It really gets at the core of our teaching and research mission,” he said.